Genetic Diversity And Classification Status Of Wapiti (Red Deer) In Northwest Of China

In this study, the whole D-loop sequences of five subspecies wapiti (Talim wapiti, Altai wapiti, Tianshan wapiti, Gansu wapiti and Alashan wapiti 108 samples in all) were amplified and sequenced, the base composition and nucleotide sequences variation were analyzed. make a phylogenetic trees, study the Genetic diversity and classification status of Red deer in northwest of China , In order to get the basic theoretical research data on the molecular level for scientific conservation and rational exploitation of genetic resources of red deer in China.We design specific primers according to the published mitochondrial genome sequence of red deer from GenBank, PCR products were sequenced after testing. Used the software Contig Express Splicing, corrected, got the complete sequence of DNA fragments of D-loop sequence; Used CLUSTALX do the homologous sequence alignment and DNASP5.1.0 for Haplotype diversity (Hd), Nucleotide diversity (Pi), The average number of nucleotide differences (K) statistical analysis; The Molecular evolutionary genetic analysis software MEGA4.0.1 was used to Determine the haplotype number of polymorphic loci, constructed the phylogenetic trees. The results show that:1. Genetic diversity of Red Deer in NorthwestThere were 40 different haplotypes in five populations, only one type shared between different groups, with 226polymorphic sites, 118parsimony informative polymorphic sites, and 124insertion/deletion in sites. Base composition similar between each groups, the average content of base T, C, A, G were 32.1%,22.1%,30.0% and 15.7%, base G lack in D-loop sequence. Compared with other groups Talim wapiti lack of a sequence of 76bp length in 173～248bp of whole sequence.The haplotype diversity (Hd) is 0.998±0.006, nucleotide differences (Pi) is 0.041±0.005, Average number of nucleotide differences K=36.08, which showed a relatively rich genetic diversity existed in wapiti in northwest of china, the Gansu wapiti had the richest diversity with the Altai wapiti relatively low diversity.2. Classification status of wapiti in northwest of ChinaThe NJ and MP phylogenetic trees showed that, five wapiti populations were divided into two class groups and Talim wapiti was belong to different groups with the other four groups. Combined with some other parts of red deer and sika deer sequences construct the NJ tree showed that, red deer and sika deer were clustered into two groups. Altai wapiti, Tianshan wapiti, Gansu wapiti and Alashan wapiti had minor genetic distance with wapiti in North American custered together with sika deer. Talim wapiti and wapiti in Europe were custered together, Talim wapiti had bigger genetic distance than other groups with sika deer, support the view of red deer originated in Europe.3. Gene flow in wapiti populationsThere were some haplotypes in Altai wapiti, Tianshan wapiti and Gansu wapiti have large differences with other haplotypes in each group, were clustered together with other groups when construct the NJ tree. This showed that some wapiti groups in northwest were invasion by the other group, may be due to the hybrid introduction from different populations.